Don’t Just Say It, SHOW It!

In a few weeks, I’ll be celebrating my four-year anniversary as a Versatrans Account Rep here at Tyler Technologies. That’s four years I’ve spent working with transportation officials across the country. I’ve learned a lot in my time here and I’m still learning — but it sure didn’t take long for me to figure out just how challenging and dynamic school transportation is, and how many issues and details any given transportation department might be dealing with at one time. School transportation professionals really take the idea of “wearing many hats” to another level!

Let’s start with the core duty of the transportation department — just a little something called safely transporting the youth of America (very precious cargo) roundtrip to school every day. In attempting to complete this one essential duty, a few things could come up: accidents, bad weather, field trips, student disciplinary issues, redistricting, board meetings, breakdowns (mechanical and otherwise), state reports, issues with driver unions, community complaints, managing employees, contractors, inspections, certifications and maybe even a rare compliment… and on top of all this, the constant communication with district parents and guardians!

I used to walk amongst the ignorant. Luckily, I’ve been given the chance to be educated and I now know just how hardworking our customers are, and how transportation is very much at the heart of everything that goes on at the school district. Unfortunately, most people (inside and outside the district) will never know “what are they doing all day long?” In 2015 I would like our customers to get the credit they deserve.

Step one in getting the credit you deserve is obvious, yet overlooked by most. You’ve got to track what’s going on — the good, the bad, the ugly and the boring! It’s great that you’ve got it all in your head… unfortunately this leaves you without much actual documentation. What happened? Who was involved? What did you do about it? Once a few weeks pass, who the heck knows? When approached for information of any kind, instead of being caught off guard, winging it or having a panic attack, wouldn’t it be nice to have some documentation to back up your claims and help sort everything out? I’ll answer that for you: YES!

Based on the feedback I’ve heard, effectively tracking and managing incidents requires a program that is flexible, dynamic, and hardworking — just like our friends in transportation.

The start of a new year is the perfect time for all of us to start tracking how awesome we are.

Published by Natalie Kehn

One thought on “Don’t Just Say It, SHOW It!”

You are ever so right, nobody knows what we do in transportation. We keep a daily log, created in an Excel spreadsheet that we can refer back to, but this is only good if all things are entered. It has helped us a few times.